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Once you've declared your intent
to
make your business a million-dollar
company, how do you get started? Count-Me-In and OPEN from American Express
offer this advice:
 SET YOUR VISION.
“If you don’t know where you’re
going…you won’t know how to get there.”
Determine what you are trying to
achieve with your business and what you
hope to achieve for yourself, your employees,
and your customers. Keep it simple,
and make it concrete.
Vision is about seeing the “big picture.”
Step back and understand your
business and personal priorities from a
larger perspective. This helps ensure that
you are proactive in setting goals, not
reactive to your immediate environment
or the task at hand. Looking at your business
in a broader context means that you
will spend more time working “on” your
business, rather than just working “in”
the business.
 MATCH THE BUSINESS
MODEL WITH YOUR VISION.
Once you have articulated your goals,
do you have a business model that will
get you there? To answer this question,
compare your vision with your business
operations. Engage other leaders in your
company in this process. Share your
vision with everyone who will listen.
Then, periodically ask yourself and others
whether your business is set up to achieve
your vision.
 INVEST IN INTERNAL
PROCESSES AND SYSTEMS.
Once you have matched your model
with your vision, you need to create
processes and systems that can make the
business happen. When it comes to giving
shape to your business, one size does
not fit all. You must identify the characteristics that are most important to making
your company what it is, and then make
tough operational choices to ensure that
the vision is realized.
For example, a customer-facing organization
might establish specific requirements
for answering customer inquiries —
that every customer phone call is to be
answered within four rings, or that an
emailed inquiry is to get a response within
two hours. As you update your vision,
business practices and systems need to be
updated, too.
 BE SELECTIVE ABOUT
FINANCING.
If you want to grow your business to $1
million, you need to understand all the
drivers of growth. You need to understand
how much cash your business will need
every month as you grow — or how fast
you “burn through” cash.
Moving forward, detailed budgets will
be crucial to determining whether your
growth plan is feasible. Will you need to
hire more people as you grow? Has this
expense been factored into your growth
plan? This information is essential when
you meet with potential sources of funding,
including bankers and investors. They
must see that your objectives are clear, and
that your growth plan is grounded in
financial reality.
 ATTRACT AND RETAIN
HIGH-PERFORMERS.
Hiring decisions are based on the vision
of your company and your strengths as a
manager. There is no right or wrong
approach. For example, you may decide
that you can best build your business
through in-house talent. Or, you may
decide to partner with vendors who can
assist you with hiring needs. You might
also decide to contract for staff to help
with you accounting, marketing, administration,
and other areas.
Hiring and firing people are among the
most crucial decisions you will make.
Equally important is the ability to let people
go when things don’t work. Are you
the type of leader who can make the difficult
decision to let somebody go — even a
friend or family member — if she or he
does not add value to your business?
Proficient employees that share the same
level of passion, expertise and commitment
to providing a worthwhile service to
customers are vital characteristics an
employee must possess to succeed in a
specialized service industry.
Also of interest:
(This article is reprinted from Vol. 7, No. 4 of Enterprising Women magazine. Copyright 2006, Enterprising Women Inc. Reproduction in whole or part is prohibited, except by express permission of the publisher.)
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